"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1972

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

JUST AN FYI

In today's Pacific Daily News:

Many unconscionable actions by Cruz

by Tim Rohr

At a recent presentation promoting his minimum-wage bill, Vice Speaker Benjamin Cruz ranted: "It is unconscionable that we as a community can leave those at the bottom of the wage ladder groveling in poverty when we can and have the means to be able to help them."

13 comments:

Mr Rohr, it does not bode well on you when you play politics, as you are quite uninformed in political matters. You assume a successful torpedoing of the minimum wage legislation on the mainland by unconscionable Republicans should mean Guam has to throw out its own. But you are not right. We are here to represent what is best for the people of Guam. What might not be possible for 300 million on the mainland is very much possible for 170 thousand on Guam! You should look at and distinguish the measures.Your personal innuendos are swept aside by your lack of readiness for political judgment. Increasing the minimum wage will shave off from the extra-profit of rich business owners like yourself and leave more money in the pocket of the earners. Wages will eventually increase in the whole public bracket. Businesses will benefit as more buying power in distributed among the population who, in turn, spend their money on their products.As you buy the ideology of an extreme right libertarian tea party movement, you also align yourself with a financially compromised PDN editorial board. But this matter should not be decided by journalists. It will be decided by the given political majority in the Guam legislation.

BTW. How curious. My letter did not make a case for or against the minimum wage. It made a case against against a hypocritical politician who lives off the people he mocks and criticize, and lives rather well. Still wondering why you're afraid of me. Unless you're Rory...again! Then I know why you're afraid of me. LOL

At Anonymous May 28, 2014 at 10:42 PM: "Increasing the minimum wage will shave off from the extra-profit of rich business owners like yourself and leave more money in the pocket of the earners." Wow. Irrespective of whether raising the minimum is a good idea, you clearly have no idea of what you are talking about.

Both 1 and 2 are myths spread by misinformation from the PDN. Businesses don't "keep" workers, they depend on them. The point is good workers deserve decent salary. Prices won't rocket because high prices stall sales. If a business raises prices people don't buy their products. That's simple. Raising GRT should also be part of the package. The rich has to give up part of the extra-profit in order to spread the wealth more evenly among the population. This is what the Church promotes according to Catholic social teaching that supports fairness and justice for the poor.

According to InflationData.com, the Consumer Price Index in 1960 was 29.6. At the end of 2011, it was 224.9, an approximate tenfold increase.

According to the Social Security Administration, average wages in 1960 were $4007.12 and $41,673.83 in 2011, an approximate tenfold increase.

Wage increases = price increases = wage increases = price increases.

So who loses? NOT the business owners. Business owners do not pay wages, taxes, rent, utilities…they don't pay anything. Their customers do. So who loses? The poor. Those on fixed incomes. Those who get priced out of the labor market. You.

Those who have skills, training, and experience will be left out and the unskilled, untrained, inexperience will get the pay raises. For example: Wages earned for those who have a BA, BS, AA etc. will probably get no more than a few dollars more than the unskilled workers.

The buying power of those who have been trained or educated and are in the workforce will be reduced due to the minimum wage increase. As minimum wages are raised so too will their EITC increased, thus making the government pay for higher refunds.

So, does Sen. BJ Cruz want the government to go into more deficit? What this bill does is it takes from the Middle Class earners to pay for the increase of the minimum wage earners.

This is tea party libertarianism, brutal and inhumane. Still it is like the soul and mind of the greedy rich, I know. They all steal from the poor. Very well. But their greed will be limited and they will go into shambles if they continue robbing the poor. Capitalists will pay a grievous price on this island when social justice takes over and people will see them as they are.As about Japanese tourists, well they should pay more for their vacation packages or go to hell. Then the tourist industry will pay off fair income to workers. Cheap labor will be cut off forever. Capisce?

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